Intel has developed "Advanced Liquid Cooler" which aims to bring watercooling to the mainstream. In order to do this the unit has to be reliable, and has to be easy to install.
Intel's self-contained watercooling unit will enable the latest Pentium Extreme Edition chips to hit 5GHz with ease.
The cooler has come out of Intel's engineering department, which is staffed with a bunch of enthusiasts who have been trying to push the envelope at Intel to try and get the firm to move away from its 'overclocking is bad, mmmkay' stance.
The team, led by thermal mechanical engineer Gavin Stanley, spent an awful lot of time looking at current watercooling kits and systems on the market. The goal of his team, he laid out, was to come up with a more robust, reliable and efficient way of watercooling the processor.
What's New :
Intel's Advanced Liquid Cooling prototype consists of a block unit which attaches to the processor. This contains the copper core which makes contact with the CPU, as well as a centrifugal pump which uses a DC brushless motor. This pumps the water up through solid metal tubing to a more traditional radiator, cooled by a 120mm fan. The integration of the cold plate improves thermal performance. The main body of the unit is made of injection-moulded plastic.
We have seen a release similar to this recently from CORSAIR in the form of the Nautilus N500 unit.
The Intel unit is slightly different since it sits inside the chassis and has a copper block which is fed by a centrifugal pump, the cooling is dealt with using a traditional radiator and a 120mm fan, and unlike a normal water cooler this system uses metal piping rather than the plastic hose which we have seen. Intel stated to us that the unit will never have to be filled with liquid by a consumer, and has no user serviceable parts.
Performance :
Because of the unique elements of the design, such as the centrifugal pump, solid tubing, precise engineering etc, it is ludicrously powerful. We saw a unit up and running, cooling a 3.8GHz Extreme Edition chip to 5.01GHz (with the RAM and FSB overclocked). The temperature on the processor was 62 celcius, well within operating parameters.
Compatibility :
The unit will fit ATX and BTX boards. Intel is currently looking to work with a technology partner to developer commercial coolers around this design. Because Intel designed it to be assembled from commonly made parts, final retail coolers are expected to cost less than $50!
The system mounts on the CPU using the same push pins which current retail heatsinks from Intel use with no back plate to bolt on. The unit which we looked at kept the CPU perfectly stable but the operating noise was very noticeable.
Launch :
We are looking to get our hands on one in a couple of weeks. This looks like it could be the most insane cooler ever created, putting extreme overclocking in the hands of the vast majority of hardware enthusiasts. Watercooling has been done before, but it appears that it takes a company with the expertise and resources that Intel has to really push it to the next level.
Intel's self-contained watercooling unit will enable the latest Pentium Extreme Edition chips to hit 5GHz with ease.
The cooler has come out of Intel's engineering department, which is staffed with a bunch of enthusiasts who have been trying to push the envelope at Intel to try and get the firm to move away from its 'overclocking is bad, mmmkay' stance.
The team, led by thermal mechanical engineer Gavin Stanley, spent an awful lot of time looking at current watercooling kits and systems on the market. The goal of his team, he laid out, was to come up with a more robust, reliable and efficient way of watercooling the processor.
What's New :
Intel's Advanced Liquid Cooling prototype consists of a block unit which attaches to the processor. This contains the copper core which makes contact with the CPU, as well as a centrifugal pump which uses a DC brushless motor. This pumps the water up through solid metal tubing to a more traditional radiator, cooled by a 120mm fan. The integration of the cold plate improves thermal performance. The main body of the unit is made of injection-moulded plastic.
We have seen a release similar to this recently from CORSAIR in the form of the Nautilus N500 unit.
The Intel unit is slightly different since it sits inside the chassis and has a copper block which is fed by a centrifugal pump, the cooling is dealt with using a traditional radiator and a 120mm fan, and unlike a normal water cooler this system uses metal piping rather than the plastic hose which we have seen. Intel stated to us that the unit will never have to be filled with liquid by a consumer, and has no user serviceable parts.
Performance :
Because of the unique elements of the design, such as the centrifugal pump, solid tubing, precise engineering etc, it is ludicrously powerful. We saw a unit up and running, cooling a 3.8GHz Extreme Edition chip to 5.01GHz (with the RAM and FSB overclocked). The temperature on the processor was 62 celcius, well within operating parameters.
Compatibility :
The unit will fit ATX and BTX boards. Intel is currently looking to work with a technology partner to developer commercial coolers around this design. Because Intel designed it to be assembled from commonly made parts, final retail coolers are expected to cost less than $50!
The system mounts on the CPU using the same push pins which current retail heatsinks from Intel use with no back plate to bolt on. The unit which we looked at kept the CPU perfectly stable but the operating noise was very noticeable.
Launch :
We are looking to get our hands on one in a couple of weeks. This looks like it could be the most insane cooler ever created, putting extreme overclocking in the hands of the vast majority of hardware enthusiasts. Watercooling has been done before, but it appears that it takes a company with the expertise and resources that Intel has to really push it to the next level.
hyeah:
. Lol.